The grand Palatium of Ravenna was built to dwarf the men inside it. Its vaulted ceilings stretched into the shadows, and the massive porphyry pillars were meant to project the eternal, unshakable Auctoritas of Rome.
But right now, the Imperium felt incredibly fragile.
The heavy oak doors didn’t just open; they were kicked inward with a violently loud CRACK that echoed like a siege ram through the hall.
Odoacer strode in.
He did not look like a foederati commander coming to petition his Emperor. He looked like the violent end of an era. The Germanic warlord was a mountain of muscle wrapped in rusted lorica squamata—scale armor—and heavy, mud-caked furs. He smelled of wet horse, freezing rain, and old blood. Behind him marched Tufa and five other chieftains, their hands resting casually on the hilts of long, iron spathas. They looked around the pristine, incense-filled basilica with open, hungry contempt.
Standing beside the imperial throne, Flavius Orestes tensed. The veteran Magister Militum instinctively rested his hand on the ivory pommel of his gladius, his face pale.
Sitting on the raised dais, dwarfed by the heavy purple paludamentum cloak of the Emperor, fourteen-year-old Romulus watched them approach. Inside his mind, his heart hammered a frantic, terrified rhythm. He was an MIT grad student trapped in a teenager's body, his brain running cold, calculated variables while his physical form trembled.
He has thousands of starving killers outside. We have a few dozen ceremonial Palatini guards. If I don't speak perfectly, we die right here.
Odoacer didn't bow. He stopped ten paces from the throne, his heavy iron-hobnailed boots tracking black alpine mud onto the polished marble floor.
"Orestes," the warlord growled. His Vulgar Latin was thick, guttural, and heavily accented with Germanic harshness. He didn't even look at the boy on the throne. "My Gens freeze in their tents. We bled for ten months in the snow to put that purple rag on your son's shoulders. The solidi are owed."
Orestes stepped forward, his jaw tight. He spoke in the clipped, formal classical Latin of the patrician class. "Commander, the Fiscus is bare. The grain fleets from Carthage have been blockaded by Vandal galleys."
"Pluto take your Fiscus!" Odoacer roared, the sheer volume of his voice making the Roman guards flinch. "I want land. One-third of the latifundia in Italia. Hand over the deeds to the estates, or my Heruli will take them by the iron. We are starving."
Orestes drew his blade an inch from its scabbard—a metallic shing that hung in the air. "If I seize the estates of the Roman elite and hand them to barbarians, the Senatus will riot. They will hire every sicarius from here to Nova Roma. It would be a slaughter."
Tufa stepped up beside his commander, baring his teeth. "Then let it be a slaughter. We will paint this beautiful stone with your blood, Magister, and take the crown off your boy's dead head."
"You will have your land, Commander."
The voice was quiet, but it cut through the heavy, violent tension like a razor.
Odoacer stopped. He slowly turned his scarred face toward the throne, genuinely surprised the boy had spoken.
Romulus leaned forward. His tongue felt thick and clumsy. The Vulgar Latin they were speaking was rougher, faster, and uglier than the pristine classical texts he had translated in college. He had to force his modern thoughts through the narrow, archaic filter of a dead language.
"You will have your latifundia," Romulus carefully pronounced, his voice remarkably steady despite his internal panic. "Every single jugerum you are owed. But you will not have Italia."
Orestes whipped his head around. "Romulus, shut your mouth—"
"Silence, Father," Romulus snapped. The sheer, cold authority in the teenager's voice made Orestes snap his mouth shut in shock.
Odoacer’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. He rested his massive hand on the crossguard of his sword. "Watch your tongue, little Augustus. You have no solidi to pay me, and now you tell me I cannot have Italia? What stops me from gutting you right now?"
"Arithmetic," Romulus said flatly. He had almost said 'math', but caught himself, forcing out the Latin Arithmetica.
Odoacer blinked. "What?"
Romulus stood up. He walked slowly down the marble steps of the dais, stopping just a few feet away from the giant barbarian. He had to speak to this man like a boss negotiating a syndicate territory dispute, using concepts the warlord could actually grasp.
"If you kill us and steal the estates, you become a thief in the eyes of the law," Romulus explained, his dark eyes locking onto Odoacer's. He spoke slowly, making sure his clumsy 5th-century Latin didn't betray him. "You will be surrounded by patricians who hate you. They will poison your posca. They will fund rebellions. But worse... Emperor Zeno in the East will have his Casus Belli. If you take Rome, Zeno will send fifty thousand Comitatenses across the sea to butcher you."
Romulus stepped closer, lowering his voice so only the warlord could hear. "You will spend the rest of your short life fighting a war you cannot win. And when you die, the patricians will come for your son, Thela. They will put his head on a pike just for sharing your blood."
Odoacer froze. His grip on his sword tightened until his knuckles turned white. No one in Ravenna knew his son's name. The boy was staring right through his armor, directly into his deepest, most guarded fear.
"I am not giving you soft, fat Italian farmland to get lazy and assassinated," Romulus said, stepping back and projecting his voice. "I am giving you the Limes. The northern frontier. Noricum and Pannonia."
Tufa let out a string of vicious curses in his native tongue. "The North?!" the Scirian spat in broken Latin. "King Feletheus and his Rugii are there! It is a frozen wasteland of war!"
"Exactly," Romulus said coldly, finding his rhythm. "I need a shield wall. You need a kingdom. If I give you Italia, you are a usurper. But if you take the North, I will sign an imperial decree making you the legal Dux—the Duke of the Frontier. You get to keep every piece of gold you loot from the tribes you kill. You get to tax the trade roads. You become the legal owner of the land."
Orestes stepped forward, horrified. "Augustus, you cannot give imperial titles to a foederati! You are legally sanctioning them to build an independent army on our borders! You are dividing the Imperium!"
"The Imperium is broke, Father!" Romulus shouted. He pointed a small, accusatory finger at the general. "The old way is dead! If we don't adapt, we die today!"
He turned back to Odoacer.
"You want to be a mercenary begging for scraps your whole life, Odoacer? Or do you want your bloodline to be royalty?" Romulus offered, extending his hand. "I will give you the legal right to conquer the North. But in exchange, you swear a sacrament to me. You become my official Northern Command. You absorb the tribes you defeat to grow your numbers, but you report to Ravenna. We run the state; you run the frontier."
Odoacer stared down at the fourteen-year-old boy. The warlord had spent his life surviving ambushes and political betrayals, but he had never seen anything like this. The boy wasn't begging for his life. He was offering a terrifyingly brilliant, mutually beneficial transaction. He was offering legitimacy.
Inside Odoacer's mind, the gears ground together. Taking Italia meant endless war. But the North? If the Emperor legally sanctioned his conquests, he wouldn't be a thug anymore. He could build a dynasty for Thela.
A slow, predatory grin spread across Odoacer's scarred face. He drew his massive broadsword.
Orestes drew his gladius with a sharp scrape, jumping between them. "Back away!"
"Stand down, Father," Romulus ordered.
Odoacer flipped the heavy blade and drove the point down hard, cracking the polished marble floor. He rested his thick hands on the crossguard and dropped heavily to one knee, bowing his head. Behind him, looking thoroughly confused but completely obedient, Tufa and the chieftains followed suit.
"I swear it, Augustus," Odoacer’s deep voice echoed through the basilica. "We march North tomorrow. But if this is a trick... if the Senatus comes for my title... I will return, and I will burn Ravenna to ash."
"If the Senatus complains," Romulus replied, a dark, ruthless smirk finally touching his face as he forced out the archaic words, "I'll let you be the one to explain our new arrangement to them